I’m at 16 visits and it’s clear, I must be able to continue these visits because the benefit is 100% to me. So I’ve either gotta pay out of pocket, fight the insurance company, Oooooorrrrrr…. have my therapist teach my husband how to do my therapy. I had discussed it at every visit and rejected it every single discussion. I felt that we, my husband and I, already had enough issues where intimacy was concerned and I didn’t want to make it worse. I felt that he would think he was causing me more pain just by touching me! I was afraid. Scared it would complicate matters even more. Every endo sister knows exactly what I’m saying. Sex, traditional intercourse, is painful. When you don’t understand why, you don’t always react appropriately and that ends up allowing doubt into your relationship.
Our first visit, I’m on the table. Melissa, my PFPT, was on my left and husband on my right. I’m on the table, naked from the waste down with a sheet over my lower half. Knees up. Melissa enters the vaginal canal to assess where I needed therapy. She explains to my husband that the points she wants him to feel for are the numbers on a clock face: noon, 3, 9… & so on.
Husband enters the vaginal canal and starts feeling around, like a clock face, looking for the points Melissa described. He feels around for a few seconds and then tells Melissa he only feels bone. Melissa said no, that is the muscle, her muscle is so frozen and locked, it just feels like bone. My husband looked me and with tears in his eyes, he finally UNDERSTOOD why I was in such bad shape. He could finally feel it, touch it and link it to some experience he has had- one we have ALL experienced at one time or another- a Charlie horse of the muscle. Only my Charlie horse was IN my entire pelvic floor and it had been that way for years!!!
Having my husband learn to do my therapy helped us, as a couple, in a number of ways. For starters, he could feel it. Touch it. And knew, instantly, the amount of pain caused by a Charlie horse… but to have a whole area of your core frozen- wow! Now he could link my pain to a painful experience he’s had and it gave my pain a foundation for us to both speak the same language. Think how absolutely powerful that was and still is… he finally knew how bad it was. It was no longer me against the medical community, trying to help me understand or find treatments… also, one of the best benefits to teaching the husband to do my therapy allowed access to PFPT 24/7!!! We discovered, quite quickly, that if we could do my therapy and get my body to relax, we could then be intimate and have intercourse with no painful effects on my body. Now, If I say it was a rough day, he knows exactly what that means. The power behind that one experience still carries me today, trough difficult and lengthy flares and if I am not in a flare, I’m in procedure after procedure.
In order to maintain and control a relaxed pelvic floor, I must get quarterly Botox injections (I have other procedures at the same time) maintain stretching, PFPT as needed and above all else, protect my pelvic floor. Any injuries to the hips or butt area can set me back to square one, pain wise. I’m very protective of my body and conscious of what happens if I am injured.
I’ve been on this path about 4 years and I still pray daily and thank the good Lord for sending me to Dr. Hibner. I also never miss an opportunity to thank God for my husband too. His willingness to go into an uncomfortable situation and learn to do physical therapy has saved me. His willingness to help me, is why I am alive today. Thank you, my love! Xx
Please, talk with your therapist and your partner. Try it… please!
If you have questions/comments? Contact me @ oldgirlintheendogame.com and I’ll blog my experience… as an #OldGirlintheEndoGame I have so much insight. Hugs fellow warriors
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